Twenty years ago this week, I emailed the first issue of the Strategic News Service to a long list of friends and colleagues. I am embarrassed to admit that our advertising and marketing approach has not changed much since then.

The premise was simple: if we could provide original, accurate, large-scale insights in the world of technology to those who cared, they would probably pay for it. Back in 1995, almost no one was paying for anything on the Internet, so that made the proposition — challenging.

The first issue focused on IBM’s hostile takeover offer for Lotus. All of the major business press, including the Wall Street Journal, had predicted the deal would fail, since the company assets “walked out the door every night.” Based on our assessment of CEO Jim Manzi’s motivating principles, we predicted the deal would go through, and it did. Those who bet on our side made a large amount of money. SNS: 1; World Press: 0. This latter trend would continue.

In this week’s discussion, we’ll look at what SNS is today, make some new announcements, open up new web offerings, and help our members find a collection of values we’ve provided, at least some of which may be new to you. And this, at the start, brings us to the heart of what SNS is, how we seem to differ from others, and what we are still trying to become. By searching for the deepest patterns in how technology drives the global economy, we end by serving members with long-lasting new understandings of our world.

As my friend and longtime member Jim Louderback suggested during a brainstorming session last week, “SNS owns the big ideas.” At the least, we play our part.

Let’s follow this track, and briefly highlight some of these big ideas.